Inbreeding

Kings of Leon are four inbred-looking brothers and cousins from
Tennessee whose 2003 debut album got US critics slightly excited. I
was dubious; as so often happens, I thought crits were attracted to
the novelty of a concept the band had yet to fill out with
material--meaning tunes, lyrics, songs. By the time of their next
album, which I thought was
much better,
crits here had moved on to the next concept, a shift facilitated by
the band's accomplished stupid act. But in Europe, where in this
century American bands have entered the market with an entire
government's stupid act against them, they'd caught on--presumably as
avatars of some stupidly conceived authenticity, I don't have the
energy to investigate the details. Anyway, having concluded
(provisionally) that their 2007 album was neither here nor there, I
liked the 2008 one better and went casting about the web for
orientation. Soon I determined that by Metacritic's stupid metric,
they'd gotten 100 from the UK's Observer Music Monthly and a 38
and 20, respectively, from reigning US webmags Pitchfork and
PopMatters. And there in the middle was a supposed 60 from this
paper I used to read a lot called The Village Voice. And in
that review, by a critic I'd never heard of named Lexy Benaim, I found
the following sentence:

But "Closer," "Use Somebody," and "Be Somebody" could only work at
giant festivals: Through headphones or computer speakers, Caleb's
echoey vocals just don't ring credible.

Turns out Benaim is lead singer of the Harlem Shakes, a local band
of minor repute and small but not altogether nonexistent formal
similaity to Kings of Leon. No previous Voice appearances. So
I'm not blaming him. Given the logistics of the current Voice
review section, where lengths look to be 300-400 words, I'm not even
blaming his editor, the estimable Rob Harvilla, though I prefer Rob's
writing to his editing. What strikes me about the part of the sentence
after the colon is that it's at once so momentous and so
unexamined. In the review, it has a context--Benaim's thesis is that
this KOL album, which he likes somewhat less than I do (though more
than 60--who makes these asinine calculations?), is their "arena-rock"
album. Fine, don't like arena-rock; I don't much like it much myself,
though I try to imply why when that taste comes into play. But the
idea that a piece of rock and roll has to signify through headphones
or computer speakers, while it obviously reflects the way many
on-the-go young people hear a lot of music these days (hope when he's
home that Benaim can easily hook his laptop up to his home sound
system, which I hope he owns), is clearly worthy of a little
exploration. There really are a lot of gradations between iPod and
convention center. Instead, the assumption is left hanging.

Review lengths, which have been declining approximately forever,
are a big part of this. In a 300-400 word review, assumptions are
inevitably left hanging. And perhaps somewhere in the trackless
expanses of web-based musical rumination, somebody--conceivably
somebody worth reading--has done some version of this job. But even in
Pitchfork, where writers are allowed to go on, I find very
little of this kind of historical and contextual self and subcultural
examination. After all, the privatization of music consumption that
the iPod-computer speaker model assumes--and though I am a proud and
stinky old fart, let me note that I have worn headphones around my
neck daily for nearly three decades now--doesn't exactly encourage the
mindset such examination requires. When people's tastes and judgments
are atomized, idiosyncratic by carefully cultivated choice, they're
much less likely to think outside their own aesthetic responses. They
won't look for historical patterns because at some level they think
they're immune to them even as they pursue the cutting edge just over
the horizon.

Wonder if Rob Harvilla could figure out a way to write a column
about this. Guy gets 1200 words or something. These days, that's
Being and Nothingness acreage.

2 Comments

By Joe Levy on December 9, 2008 9:47 AM

Not having read the Benaim piece, let me just point out two things:
Overseas KOL actually are a festival/arena band; I took the suggestion
that some of their songs could only work in that setting to be a
comment on just that. Second, and more importantly, no one listens to
music on a sound system anymore. This gross generalization (I have a
million of 'em, including "no one watches television on TV anymore")
is an overstatement meant to reflect a generational truth, which is
that stereos are no longer in fashion. A five-speaker surround-sound
rig for your TV (which is used to watch DVDs and play video games,
not--as I've previously stated--to watch television; that's what Hulu
and Torrent are for), that's worth having. But big speakers for music?
No thanks.

Kids in high school and college today have grown up in an era when
musical recordings no longer have any physical dimensions--this cannot
be over emphasized--and ergo don't see any reason to run the MP3 files
they download through big equipment. This isn't just a matter of
convenience (though certainly that's a factor); it is a fact of life
with complex roots in technology and psychology. (By technology, I
mean actual diminishment of sound quality; the way in which MP3s
literally contain less information than CDs. By psychology, I mean the
unconscious decision you make about how to treat something with no
physical manifestation. Why use some specialized piece of equipment to
play MP3s? They don't even exist! They are an airy nothing, a cloud of
digits compressed into a small file. You might as well buy a plane in
order to fly it as a kite.)

Let me say this with the complete confidence that comes only with
gross generalizations: Young music fans would no more have a stereo
(or sound system) than they would a typewriter. I put it just this way
this two or three years ago to the president of a major label, who
refused to believe it could be true. (He'd just moved his son into an
NYU dorm the week before, and his son had a great stereo! And also a
father who earned several million dollars a year selling--or failing
to sell--music. Not coincidentally, that guy no longer has a job.)
But every time I'm on a college campus and tell that story as an
example of how out of touch record companies have been, every head in
the room nods in agreement. And 90% of those heads belong to music
fans who've shown up to hear the editor of a music magazine talk.

My point being: While there are plenty of gradations between iPod
and convention center (the club, for one), it's entirely reasonable to
address younger readers who don't make them. (Especially in New York
City, where the major step up from iPod in most young people's
lives--car stereo--doesn't factor in much.) Otherwise, it's pretty
much ear buds and computer speakers.

By Milo Miles on December 27, 2008 12:30 PM

I agree with everything Joe says, except I think the typewriter
metaphor is a bit off. Typewriters were supplanted by computers, which
can do everything the old keyboards could do, and much more. Replacing
stereo systems and CDs/LPs/whatever with MP3 iPods and downloads is
more like replacing typewriters with a pencil and a piece of
paper. The new system is just not as powerful.

And I certainly agree that any artwork without a physical
manifestation has less meaning. (You knew you really cared about a
song on the radio when you went out and got the record.) Seems likely
that at least a whole generation will grow up, not to finally get the
fancy stereo they want, but to not care much about music at all.